Birth name | George Joseph Peter Ayoub | ||||||||||||||||
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Date of birth | 23 October 1963 | ||||||||||||||||
Place of birth | Sydney, Australia [1] | ||||||||||||||||
Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||
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George Ayoub (born 23 October 1963) is an Australian professional rugby union referee. He is currently a member of the Super Rugby panel for Television Match Officials (known as TMO), and is a former Test Match referee. [2]
Born in Sydney, Ayoub trained as a teacher and took up refereeing in 1990 when he was a schoolmaster at St Patrick's College, Strathfield. [3] [4] By 1995 he was refereeing senior rugby in Sydney and he was selected on the Australian referees panel in 1996. [4] He made his Super Rugby debut in May 2000, refereeing a Super 12 match between the Sharks and Chiefs in Durban. [5]
Ayoub was appointed to his first Test in May 2002 between Japan and Tonga, [6] and went on to referee 3 Tests and 17 Super Rugby matches before he retired at the end of 2007. [3] In 2008 he returned to international rugby as a TMO. [7]